Welcome back to our in-depth guide on growing your own Microgreens. Microgreens are a powerhouse of flavor and nutrition, perfect for enhancing your meals while bringing a bit of greenery to your home. Now that you have your starting tools, let’s get started growing!
Prepping Your Seeds – Day 1
We will start by soaking our microgreen seeds for 3–12 hours, depending on their size. Larger seeds need more time to absorb water. If we have hydrogen peroxide handy, add a teaspoon to the soaking water—this optional step helps prevent mold growth later on.
If you purchased one of the smaller starter trays, they can handle about 2–4 tablespoons of seeds, while a 1020 tray—a popular option for larger yields—can accommodate 6–8 tablespoons. Pick the size that fits your goals and available space.
Setting Up the Growing Medium
Once your seeds have finished soaking for the allotted time, drain the seeds. The water that was used to soak the seeds may have a slight discoloration to them – we do not need to save this water. We can now spread our seeds evenly across our chosen growth medium. If the mesh tray we are using has holes larger than the seeds, place a paper towel down first to prevent the seeds from falling through. Ensure the seeds are moist, but avoid adding extra water—drenched seeds won’t germinate properly.
While optional, weighting down your seeds is highly recommended for faster germination. If you purchased the starter tray we mentioned in our previous post, you can use the see-through lid as the base, and use the green tray on top upside down and put something with some weight on it. The weight does not need to be too heavy; a cup or two of water would suffice. The goal is not to crush our seeds, but merely trick the seeds into thinking that it is actually in soil. This encourages the seeds to “push” against the weight as they sprout, promoting even growth.
An alternative to using another tray on top of the seeds that we have found works wonders is a Ziploc bag half filled with water.
Daily Care – Day 2 to 3
Our weighted seeds should stay like this for 1-2 days. Ideally we want to keep the weight on the seeds until most or all of the seeds have begun to germinate. Spray the seeds with a gentle mist of water twice a day, or approximately every 10–12 hours, to keep them hydrated. If some seeds have already started germinating, you can still put the weight back down—it won’t hurt them!
Once we are happy with the number of seeds that have begun to sprout, we can remove the weights and add some water to the base tray. Our microgreens can start soaking up some water themselves as they see fit from their own roots, but we’ll cover this in more detail in our next post!